11/5 - the baths at Taketoritei Maruyama

After settling into our hotel room, we decided to wander around Taketoritei Maruyama.  The ryokan was only 6 stories tall and each floor only had a handful of rooms.  We went back into the lobby to see what was happening.  However, we soon discovered that everyone had changed into the yukata provided by the hotel.  Meanwhile, we, the newbie visitors to a ryokan onsen, were still in our shirts and jeans.  Oh did we ever stick out of the crowd.  We quickly went back up to our room and got changed into the clothing provided.

First order of the day after familiarizing ourselves with our room and exploring the hotel lobby, it was time to try out the many baths of Taketoritei Maruyama.  The baths at the onsen could basically be divided into two types of spring water spread across many different locations.  The two types were Ginsen (silver spring) and Kinsen (gold spring).  The Ginsen is a clear spring water that is purportedly rich with radium and carbonate.  Kinsen is a rich milky and silky looking water that is almost gold in colour.  Your hand literally disappears once it's an inch below the surface of the water.  Both have their reported health benefits for a variety of chronic ailments.

We tried the "public bath" in the hotel first.  The public bath is not really open to the outside public, but is accessible to all hotel guests at almost any time of the day.  This bath is set up like a sento that you would find outside, but it was fancier inside.  Like a sento, the baths were split between men and women.  There was a washing area to cleanse your body before dipping oneself in the very, very hot water.  There were two indoor bathing pools - one Ginsen and one Kinsen.  Then there was one outdoor pool - a Ginsen pool.  When I went into my side, I was initially by myself.  So I just enjoyed the whole place to myself.  Eventually, a large group of men joined me and it wasn't so quiet anymore.  That's roughly when I decided to go back to our room.

N was still enjoying her side of the "public bath" when I had gone back to our room.  I think this was the day I could really feel the jet lag set in.  It didn't matter that I had taken the melatonin to help the previous nights.  I was really exhausted now.  I tried to crash and rest before going to our designated time for our "private onsen."

I had to run back down to the lobby and get the key for our private onsen time.  Taketoritei Maruyama has four of these private onsens.  We were a little disappointed with our onsen only because the baths were the same as the ones in the public area, but the tubs were smaller to accommodate couples or small groups.  However, it was still very comfortable to soak in the oh-so-hot baths.  N couldn't help but take a few pot shots at me after I immersed myself in the Kinsen and the water overflowed over the side.

Then there was our personal onsen attached to our hotel room.  I didn't get to enjoy it until early the next morning.  I was just so exhausted and jet lagged at night that I didn't want to bathe.  N was definitely not happy that I passed on the personal onsen at night because she didn't want to go out there alone.  The personal onsen was Ginsen water, but was also very, very hot and oh-so-comfy.  You just had to watch out when stepping out because there were some pine needles scattered on the ground.  Poke!

11/5 - Arima Onsen - Arriving at the hot springs

We arrived in Takarazuka to begin our bus ride up the mountains to Arima Onsen.  We were way early for the next bus by a half hour.  So we hung around the Hankyu Department Store for most of that time.  We used their facilities (always use the facilities when you get a chance) and checked out their food floor.  Every Japanese department store has these large food floors.

On the bus, we quickly noticed that there weren't many other young folk on the bus.  There was maybe one or two.  I remember for sure that a young lady was sitting right in front of us and busy texting on her flip phone.  Everyone else were seniors travelling to the onsen.  I suspect that they wanted to take advantage of the health benefits of the natural hot springs.

The bus journey up the mountain was definitely not quick.  It must have been roughly an hour's ride winding up the small mountain road.  It wasn't overly twisty like some mountain roads that I've been on.  When we started in Takarazuka, I was hoping the bus would take the highway onramp, but no such luck.  In any case, we got to see a much more rural part of Japan than what I'm used to seeing.  Yes, that's right.  Japan is not one giant urban metropolis.  There are farms and little townships in Japan too.

Pretty soon, you could tell we were arriving in a touristy area when the bus stops were closer together and the shops looked neater.  We got off in the middle of town where the bus terminus is.  The bus basically dropped us off in front of the town's info centre and proceeded to back into its parking spot. 

We wandered off to what looks like possibly an artificial river in the Arima River.  There was a classic red Japanese bridge crossing over it.  We took a few pictures from over the bridge.  It looked like you could go down to this concrete river bed and get closer, but we weren't in the mood for that. As usual, we are always interested in food stuff and found a shop selling some buns of some sort.  We definitely needed to try some of those hot steamy buns. 

It was time for us to contact the hotel and get our ride to the hotel.  We were staying at a hotel called Taketoritei Maruyama.  It's an upscale ryokan that specializes in giving you a traditional Japanese sleeping experience in addition to their many onsen baths.  The Japanese size minivan picked us up and drove us up the hill past the town centre to the hotel.